Ruthless Force (Her Vicious Pack #10)

Chapter 1 Vera

Vera

“The vans have reached the front of the building. Get ready to fight.”

Caleb’s words over the earpiece make my heart race and I break out in a cold sweat.

Fuck.

The kids aren’t far enough away from here yet, we can’t pull out right now. We’ll have to stand and fight, give them more time.

I turn to Luca, who’s holding onto my hand tightly, his face pale, his eyes wide in panic. “Go join the others. I’ll help out here, until everyone is safe.”

He shakes his head fiercely. “I’m not leaving you alone. I want to stay with you.” He’s shivering, though probably from fear and exhaustion more than anything else.

The sounds of gunshots bounce off the brick walls down the alley, ringing loudly between the old buildings, before they reach us, making me freeze for a moment. It’s started.

Then years of being on the run with Caleb, and months of training from Derrick, kick in. I have to get Luca to safety and then I can get back to the rest of my orders.

“I’m not alone.” I try to pull my hand from Luca’s grip, but he’s not letting go. “There are two of Mathew’s teams inside. I’ll be fine.” And I would like the honours of burning this hell-hole down, I’m not giving that satisfaction to anyone else.

They hurt my mates, so I’ll be the one to make this place disappear for good.

I pull on my arm again, but the stubborn look in Luca’s eyes won’t budge. The sounds of the gunshots intensify and seem to be coming closer and closer.

Luca needs to get out of here!

He can’t stay here!

“You don’t have any weapons. You have no way to defend yourself. You’re better off with Jorge and the others.” I don’t want Luca to go through any more pain than he’s already been through, and he really doesn’t need to see me take out even more people.

He’s seen me harm enough people in the short time we’ve known each other. I don’t want him to have any more memories of that side of me than he already has.

“I’m not leaving you alone.” He weaves our fingers together, his grip stronger than before. He’s still shaking slightly, but there’s a new determination in his every movement.

Then he reaches up to his earpiece, his eyes stuck on mine as he speaks. “Where are the teams inside the brothel? Locations?”

It seems a few people start to answer him, but stop when they realise who asked the question. While Luca is part of the pack, he’s not someone they expect to be in charge.

“Answer him.” The frustrated growl Mathew’s voice is loud and clear.

“Five people in the front room downstairs. We’ve got a clear line of sight to the vans,” a woman answers.

“Four upstairs in the front room. Two in side rooms either side. We’ve got a clear line of sight down the streets.” This time the answer is from a man.

“Make sure to cover as much of the area as possible and take out anyone you can.” Mathew sounds frustrated, which isn’t unexpected since he had to pull out because he got shot in his leg. Then his voice softens. “Luca? Are you with Jorge and the others yet?”

“No.” Luca’s voice is clipped as he looks around, like he’s trying to find something. Then he pulls me along to one of the guards we took out early on, his grip on my hand still tight, he’s really not letting me go.

“Luca?” Riley doesn’t seem happy or satisfied with Luca’s answer. “Where are you? Have you reached any of the vans yet?”

But Luca ignores the questions as he reaches out, his face full of determination, no traces of fear or disgust, as he goes through the pockets of the dead guard, pulling out a knife and then a lighter.

“Bingo.” His triumphant voice is quiet, almost disappearing in the noise going on around us. If I’d been any further away, I wouldn’t have heard it. “This should be good enough.”

Good enough? For…

Uh-oh.

No way! I’m not letting him go back in!

I can’t let him put himself in more danger. I won’t let him do that!

Not just the danger, but also to have him see the dead bodies, the people we killed… I can’t do it. I can’t have him defile his memories with even more of that.

I hold out my hand. “I’ll do it. Let me do this for you, and for Mathew. Let me bring all of it down.”

He keeps my gaze, serious, defiant. “I’m going with you.”

“Vera? Caleb? Derrick? Where’s Luca? Do you have eyes on him? I don’t want him to do something rash. He shouldn’t be anywhere near the building right now.” Mathew’s voice has taken on a worried tone, nervous.

I reach up. “I’m with him. I’ll make sure he gets out unharmed.” While I don’t want to take him, Luca knows this place the best and he deserves to have a hand in taking it down.

“Gets out?! He’s not supposed to be in there in the first place.” I’m sure that Mathew would love to barge over here and pull both of us away, but he’s not and the others are busy enough elsewhere.

“Vera? Don’t do anything reckless.” That’s Caleb, not telling me off, just worrying, as usual.

“I won’t. I’ll make sure we get out in one piece.” I tug on Luca’s hand, our fingers still entwined, back into the building. As soon as we’re back inside, the shots and sounds from outside are quieter, making it a little easier to think.

“Caleb!” Mathew isn’t so happy with this, clearly. “Get them out of there!”

That seems to be enough for Derrick, his voice stern. “No bickering. Stay focused.”

There’s a loud explosion, almost like a bomb went off, the sound seems to vibrate through the building.

“One of their vans blew up.” The woman from before speaks up. “No casualties on our side.”

If we want to make something happen, we have to do it quickly, before the people from the Hearts manage to come inside and before even more people arrive.

Luca pulls me into the basement, his eyes focused as he scans the area.

He looks nothing like the scared guy I met that first night, but this is also the last time he’ll ever be around violence ever again.

No matter what, he’s not coming with us again, just like Jorge.

They are not made for this, this goes against every fibre of their being.

Never again after this. Because I don’t want them to get hurt more than they already are.

I let his hand go so he can find what he’s looking for while I look around the place to see if anything in here is important enough to save. It doesn’t look like it, but you never know. “I have a feeling that you’ve considered burning this place down before. Am I right?”

Luca’s way too focused and sure. This isn’t an impulse, this is a plan.

He glances my way before handing me a couple of empty boxes. “A few times while I was living here and many times since Mathew told me that we were going to take this place down.” He grabs a few boxes for himself, putting them under his arm.

“You’ve got everything?” The sounds from outside keep making me more and more nervous. I want to get this over as quickly as possible.

“Yep.” He glances around one last time and then goes up one of the other stairs out of the basement. The door on this side clearly opened with a key and not broken open with force like the one we came in through.

Another door at the top of the stairs lets us out into a regular hallway, not a secret one like Riley and I used before, on the side of the building that Mathew and Caleb looked through before.

“We’re lucky this is an older building and that they don’t take fire safety too seriously.” Luca walks to the front of the building and I stop him, my hand on his chest, he looks at me, almost annoyed. “I am going to do this. I thought you weren’t going to stop me?”

“I’m not stopping you. It’s just...” I glance to the doors to the front room. “There are a lot of bodies out there. Riley and I didn’t exactly leave the place in a pretty state.”

“I know.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the lighter, putting it in my hand. “Just in case I lose my courage.”

“Thanks.” I kiss his cheek, wishing I could hug him, but we don’t have much time and we’ve got our arms full.

“You go in first, I’ll follow.” I put the lighter in my pocket and reach up to my earpiece.

“Luca and I are about to walk into the downstairs front room. We’re going to start some fires.

People should try pulling out as soon as is safe. ”

Luca starts walking again, his steps less sure, but still steady. As we get closer to the doors, the sounds of gunfire get louder and louder and as he pushes open the door, the sounds hurt my ears.

Mathew’s people have pushed all the furniture against the doors and windows, creating a barrier to hide behind. One or two look at us, before focusing back on what’s going on in the streets.

Luca walks over to the nearest curtains, cuts up some of the boxes he’s holding and then puts the strips together so they’ll easily catch fire. These curtains are decorative, not actually near any doors or windows, so they’re the safest place to start.

“Okay, upstairs, get out.” I kneel next to the boxes as we listen to the thuds from footsteps upstairs, and then down the stairs. I take the lighter and set a few of the box strips on fire.

Once the fire is burning well and has started to lap at the curtains, we step back. We carefully make our way to the next set of curtains, while making sure we stay out of sight of the windows.

The downstairs team keeps ahead of us, clearing a path, creating places for us to start the fires and keeping the people in the street occupied. They’ve also pulled some of the bodies to the middle of the room and when I glance to Luca, he’s noticeably not looking in that direction.

He puts down a couple more cut up boxes and I hand him the lighter. He gives me a tight smile as he holds it near the boxes, the flame moving jerkily as his hand is shaking, and they catch fire. We wait for a couple of seconds, making sure it’s burning well, and then step away.

As Luca steps back, he trips over something and I quickly grab for him, dropping my boxes. He looks down, very pale, but seems to relax when he realises it’s a broken piece of wood, from a table or chair. Then he lets out a soft chuckle. “That was almost a repeat of that first night.”

I raise my eyebrow at him not so sure what he’s talking about, but he quickly shakes his head, grabs the boxes I dropped and nudges me on.

“Let’s keep going. It’s not exactly safe to stay here, right?”

I look back to where we set the first fire and the curtains have started to properly burn, the flames reaching the ceiling, the heat from them starting to fill the room. Yeah, if we don’t keep moving, we might not be able to get out on time.

And that would be very, very bad.

I look to the people from Mathew’s team and sign for them to get moving, then I reach up so everyone hears me. “Everyone out of the building. This thing is going down.”